Meet Jorge

A
silver-haired farmer, Jorge talks a mile a minute. His passion and energy for
taking care of his tiny community of Saca Sirca in the district of San Benito,
Bolivia is clear.

The homes in
Saca Sirca are spread out. Slow-moving cows like to block the deeply rutted
dirt road. To the right empty brown fields await the next planting season, and
on the left green lines of carrots sit in their marshy fields – the only color
in the dusty dry season’s faded landscape.

Plains
stretch from Saca Sirca to the far-off mountains that surround this valley. The
people who live here don’t have much. They live simply on these plains and they
like it that way.

Two years
ago, Jorge got an idea in his head to improve life for Saca Sirca: he wanted to
build a well that would provide safe water.

The problem
with this idea was that people didn’t want a new well and water system. Most of
them already had wells at their house. They were shallow wells that provided
water that was often contaminated by families’ pit latrines, but they were
still wells. Most community members didn’t want to invest in a new water
system, even if it would bring them safe water.

"People were
saying, ‘We don’t need a water system, we have our own wells,’" said Jorge.

Leaders from
the district told Jorge he would never convince the people. Saca Sirca was too
poor, too far away, too set in its ways.

He went home
to home and organized community meetings. He told families how they could have
water coming out of a tap – water they wouldn’t have to boil to remove
bacteria.

Little by little,
the community’s resistance lowered and they saw Jorge’s perspective. When
everyone was in favor, Jorge worked with the district of San Benito and Water
For People to make plans. All 31 families in the community pitched in to help
with the construction, but they quickly ran into a problem.

"The soil
was not strong enough for a water tower, so we couldn’t do a gravity-fed
system," says Jorge. "The families were so disappointed."

Jorge
figured out they could do a different kind of system that didn’t need a water
tower. But first they needed a power connection, and the nearest connection was
100 meters away from the well.

Jorge
refused to give up.

"I traveled several
hours and found a high-level manager in an electrical company," says Jorge. "I
did everything I could. I talked with him and a week later they were digging
holes for electric poles. We got the electricity for the system."

After two
months of construction and solving the electricity issue, the water system was
finished, and the community threw a big party.

"It’s unbelievable
that now we just open the tap and have water," said Jorge. "Seeing water come
out of pipes in your own backyard…who could have imagined that?"

The
community members are already seeing the benefits of investing in their new
water system.

"There has
been so much change," says Jorge. "The children are cleaner, they are able to
go to school more, people can even have showers in their home. Now I have more
water to irrigate my crops."

Although
he’s too humble to admit it, Jorge is a hero of Saca Sirca. All he wanted was
for the families in this little farming community to have the good life they
deserve – and he knew it started with water.

"Someday I will be able to die at peace," he says. "Because I’ll know all the families here have water."